“I know it’s going to happen, but I’d prefer not to think about how I want it to happen.”

“You want to die in your sleep?”

“That sounds decent.”

“Not me, Mister, I want to die with speed.”

“You mean driving a car?”

“Yeah, Mister, driving like 200 and . . . ”

José punches his fist into his opposing palm and opens his eyes big like an explosion. I think about Camus crashing into that tree.

“I like speed, Mister.”

“Do you play any sports?”

“Speed. Speed’s my sport.”

I give José some math problems to work on. He begins to add mixed numbers with unlike denominators. The diamond earring in his left earlobe is there.

“Have you ever jumped out of a plane, Mister?”

“No. I’ve scuba dived.”

José nods his head.

“I’ve jumped out of a plane.”

“When?”

“Last year. My teacher took us on a field trip.”

“You jumped out of a plane on a field trip?”

“Yeah, Mister. My parents signed some paper and I went.”

“How many other people jumped with you?”

“Like twelve. Our teacher jumped too. I didn’t think she would ’cause she was old, but she jumped.”

I point at the white board he’s adding on. He doesn’t pay attention.

“Mister, I need to know what you would do in my situation. There’s this girl. You two aren’t anything or nothing. Just like friends. She was talking to you, and another girl walked by, and you like, you looked at the other girl, you stared at her, and this girl got mad at you. She said she ain’t never gonna to talk to you again. What would you do?”